What Same-Sex Marriage Means

We opponents of same-sex marriage are fighting a rear-guard battle. Recently Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington passed referendums in support of legal unions for gay couples. If the latest polls are to be believed, a substantial majority of Americans in the not too distant future will judge same-sex marriage to be morally equivalent to heterosexual marriage. What accounts for the radical shift in public opinion from a traditionalist understanding of marriage to a progressive one?

In Debating Same-Sex Marriage, authors Maggie Gallagher (co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage) and John Corvino (associate professor of philosophy at Wayne State University) debate the philosophical arguments for their respective positions. As they explain in the introduction, their purpose is to “achieve disagreement” in order to uncover “where they differ and why.”

Gallagher’s argument against same-sex marriage is divided into two parts. The first part contends that marriage refers to a “natural kind” that law did not create. The second part claims that historic and cross-cultural understandings of marriage are grounded in its natural foundations. Gallagher begins by stating the traditionalist view of marriage, a view she says elites now find incomprehensible: “Marriage is intrinsically a sexual union of husband and wife, because these are the only unions that can make new life and connect those children in love to their co-creators, their mother and their father.”

According to Gallagher, marital unions are unique insofar as they consolidate basic goods like sex, love, babies, rearing children, and mother and fathers. These basic goods tend to fragment outside the marital union. Since marriage is the institution that best functions to tie together the basic goods, it is intrinsically moral.

Gallagher argues that the word marriage refers to a natural kind. Believers in natural kinds hold that words, taxonomies, and classifications track the divisions within nature. Unlike a corporation, which is an institution that comes into being and is regulated through legal decrees and definitions, marriage “has meaning prior to and outside a current legal definition.” Likewise, the component parts of marriage, the basic goods, are prior to and outside legal definition. For example, one way of talking about sexual relations when construing marriage as referring to a natural kind is to argue that sexual relations require a male and female body for the purpose of reproduction. Law may regulate sexual relations, but law cannot decree that male bodies unite for the sake of reproduction. In this view, marriage can be affirmed, denied or regulated by the law, “but law alone cannot create marriage in a socially meaningful way.”

Although Gallagher acknowledges in a footnote that her view of marriage is only partially indebted to theorists such as Robert P. George and John Finnis, it is clear that her conception of marriage is deeply grounded in the natural-law tradition.

In the second part of her argument—“What is Marriage: The Case for Our Historic, Cross-Cultural Understanding”—Gallagher states that “marriage is a virtually universal human social institution. It exists in virtually every known human society.” She briefly mentions various forms that marriage has taken across history and cultures from the jungle of the Amazon, the steppes of Asia, the deserts of Africa to the forests of America and Europe. The recurrence of the marriage idea in diverse human societies, she says, confirms that the institution is grounded in nature and that it “addresses three persistent truths about human beings everywhere.”

The first truth is that marriage provides a context in which men and women both satisfy and tame their sexual desires. The second truth is that marriage provides the context in which society replenishes itself through reproduction. The third truth regarding marriage is that a child ought to have a mother as well as a father. Gallagher supplies historical context to emphasize the importance of this third truth by explaining that in the 1970s many educated elites argued that nontraditional family structures were good. Single mothers and unmarried women with children were all considered liberated from “archaic moral norms.”

Gallagher rightly points out that the elites were wrong. Subsequent social-science studies have shown that children tend to do better emotionally and intellectually when they are brought up by married mothers and fathers. Gallagher’s arguments are bolstered by the recent social-science research done by Mark Regnerus on adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships. His major finding is that these children of parents have some of the same social problems as the children of co-habiting parents or single parents.

If marriage refers to a natural kind that consists of a mother and a father, and it is not created by law because it is prior to law, why does the law regulate marriage? Because civic order, according to Gallagher, has a stake in regulating the sexual behavior of men and women for the purpose of ensuring that children are raised by married mothers and fathers in a context that provides a sense of familial permanence, monogamy, and fidelity.

Corvino offers a radically different conception of marriage. He defines marriage as involving a “couple’s commitment to each other and to society that they are each other’s main line of defense in the world, for life. It [marriage] is an exclusive commitment, not in the sense a spouse doesn’t care for other people (children, friends, parents), but in the sense that only one person can be your Number One Person.”

From Gallagher’s perspective, Corvino’s definition of marriage is radical because it is genderless and purposeless. It strips marriage of its role in regulating sexual contact for the purpose of reproduction. Even if one were to argue that sexual contact within marriage is not always for the sake of reproduction, it is still the case that sexual contact between a husband and wife may potentially result in reproduction. Even when conception cannot take place in a heterosexual marriage due to infertility, purpose resides in the couple’s organic bodily union. Corvino’s definition of marriage merely describes an emotional relationship.

Corvino argues that the word marriage does not refer to a natural kind. Like most words that are governed by convention, marriage acquires its meaning through a “shared understanding across a community.” According to Corvino, Gallagher has fallen into the error of thinking that marriage has a static referent that is independent of law and social custom. To illustrate her confusion he cites two examples. The first concedes Gallagher’s point that some words, like the word mother, refer to a biological reality: “the mother is the person who bears the child with her body.” But Gallagher also states that through law and custom a mother who “cannot or will not perform her maternal function for the child” can be replaced by another mother who can perform her maternal function. Similarly, Corvino argues, the traditional definition of marriage can be replaced by one that includes same-sex couples. Same-sex couples, according to Corvino, can perform social roles that are associated with married couples like romantic partnering and exclusive commitment.

His second example highlights the elasticity of conventional institutions such as marriage by analogizing it to the introduction of the designated hitter rule in baseball. The rule allowed someone else to hit for the pitcher. Purists objected to the rule, but it became an accepted feature of the game. Today the word baseball includes the designated hitter rule. Corvino’s point is that social practices like baseball and marriage, contra Gallagher, are not prior to custom and outside current legal definition. These social practices are the product of custom and law.

Gallagher’s argument against same-sex marriage is motivated by the natural-law tradition, which states that marriage requires procreative–type acts. Corvino takes issue with natural-law theorists who argue that homosexual conduct is wrong because “it violates the sexual organs’ ‘natural purpose’ of procreation.” One of the questions he raises is whether a sterile heterosexual couple violates the natural purpose of procreation. If the answer is no, Corvino responds, would not the same hold for a same-sex couple? Another question is whether the natural-law tradition would allow paraplegics to marry legally. The inability of the sterile heterosexual couple or the paraplegic to realize the natural purpose of their sexual organs leads Corvino to conclude that the natural-law theorists’ arguments in opposition to same-sex marriage are incoherent.

Debating Same-Sex Marriage is an important book that lays bare the philosophical arguments for and against the legalization of same-sex marriage. Although I am partial to Gallagher’s arguments, Corvino’s position is well argued and more in tune with the times. Perhaps the traditionalist’s view of marriage as a heterosexual institution should consider the position recently advocated by David Blankenhorn, a former opponent of same-sex marriage who has come to believe that marriage as a social practice will be strengthened by including homosexual couples in such a conservative institution. Whether or not Blankenhorn is correct, whichever side wins the debate over same-sex marriage, the losing side will be permanently marginalized.

Andre Archie is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University.

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72 Responses to What Same-Sex Marriage Means

Years ago, I tried to explain my reluctance to accept same-sex marriage to a friend. During that discussion, I justified my feelings based on an understanding that the primary purpose of marriage is to protect children. I thought that legitimation of marriage without children undermined that purpose. By that standard, I had to recognize that all marriages without the intent to have children, including my brother’s and sister-in-law’s, would not be legitimate. That left me with two choices 1) no marriage license without a confirmed pregnancy, or 2) change my position on same-sex marriage. I chose the second.

Years later, after same-sex marriage was legalized here in Massachusetts, I was given final emotional conviction for that choice when I saw those first pictures in the Boston Globe of smiling men with men and women with women walking down the courthouse stairs.

Debating Same-Sex Marriage leaves out the key question that must ultimately determine whether to allow same-sex couples to marry: should they be allowed to use new stem cell based reproductive technology to create offspring together?

That cannot be a separate question. If we don’t allow it, then it would mean marriage no longer protects and approves of the conception of offspring, which would be a huge terrible change to marriage and human rights in general. If we do allow it, then there is no logical reason to oppose the couple getting married, all couples that are allowed to procreate together should always be allowed to marry.

Elite sed: The suggests that those who choose homosexual behaviors are responsible for some unique use of 1. POA, Living wills, etc. is simply not true. The POA is rooted in English Common Law, and has been in a standard practice since the country’s founding. To suggest that those who choose homosexual life choices did anything more than implement that practice does not seem supported by any evidence I have found. And if they had done as you suggested they would not have complaints about hospital visitation of in heeritance issues…2. Living wills were first officially proposed in 1969….3) Co habitation (common law marriage)….

I am not sure what you point is…I am not saying that gay men were responsible for these legal mechanisms…but that gay men pioneered the use of these legal instruments to legally define their intimate relationships, and protect their choices and property rights. And therefore, homosexuals do have the right to legalize their relationships and there is no need to redefining the institution of marriage.

Regardless of what you think about homosexuality, they still have property rights, they have access to all the legal mechanisms they need to define and protect their personal choices and their intimate relationships.

There is all this phony propaganda that homosexuals are denied visitation rights to their partners, or the right to leave private property to their partners and or define the obligations to each other by legal contracts…

then I suggest you check the definition of pioneered. They didn’t pioneer any of these tools. They are not behaviorial specific, they are available for use as to the law. Those who choose homosexual relationships should have chosen these avenues more often. Instead, they chose to attack the state of marriage.

So when you say they used them to do ____, they was no pioneering. The purposes them used them is exactly why and how they were created: the protection of property, issuance of power to another —- those practiced were pioneered centuries ago.

And your contention that those who choose this behavior suggests that they were denied these protections in the past. So do name exactly what law or statute denied transfer of property, property protection, etc. And let’s be clear here, said law must be targeted to this population. homosexual relationships do not conform to what constitutes a marriage at any level. As to human relations marriages are comprised of:

1. a bond of commitment between men and women

2. a bond in which the parties may potentially bare children

3. a bond which reflects what exists in nature among relations between men and women

4. is a dynamic that has existed universally in concept and practice

5. a relationship that contributes something unique to societies.

Now as you your complaint that said couples have the right to legalize their relationships. Everyone has the right to legalize their relationships — that is nonunique. And civil unions was that path. Do explain the need to dismantle the concept of marriage in order to accomplish that task. Now no doubt toy are going to complain about happiness . . . and emotional well being. The law is not preventing those who engage in unnatural behaviors happiness. that is an internal state, born out internal dillemmas. marriage is not going change that people are engaging in behaviors that are an anomoly and hence outside the norm – abnormal. Each person must reconcile that issue for themselves. So in looking at just how this progressed:

This community first launched a violent assaults(several apparently) during APA conferences demanding that the abnormal classification be changed. The APA, out of fear, out of pity, out of empathy, but for reasons outside of their standard scientific rigor, did so. The community in question was still unhappy.

The community in question launched a series and relemtless campaign to ‘out’ supposed others who engaged in this behavior, whether they were or not. Violating the privacy of others, and destroying families, etc. Still did not bring happiness.

Throughout this period, this community was engaged what can only be described as seriel unprotected relationships, in avenues which catered to their lifestyle. They were not raided, they were by and large left to themselves and still they were not happy. No law hindered them. Sodomy laws apply to everyone, and were not generally enforced unless, the practice occurred in public forums — guess what– heterosexual behavior caught in publc places were also proseuted as well as heterosexual prostitution. Still, the community remained unhappy. They blamed their unhappiness on everyone else — even to go as far as to blame the government for HIV which spread amongst this community. In a complete denial even after it became clear that it was sexual behavior that caused it’s spread. In their bid for happiness, they blamed everyone except themselves, even to go as far as launching massive conspiracy theories about drug research. Somehow the illness reached proportions that demanded more attention and effort than: cancer, parkinson’s, — and after guilting the government into some strage compliance about this perfectly manageable illness, with creation of special reaserch grants, this community remained unhappy.

Ahhh, the answer civil unions, which started out as a demand for health benefits for partners and hospital visitation rights (visitation that was denied by immedite family members whose loved one was suffering the painful, affects of AIDS from HIV infection. or other unrelated hospitalizations.) Interesting that these supposed pioneers had this hospitalization issue, some resolveable via a POA — that contradicts your position from another angle. They chose instead to go after civil unions. Because the other effective avenues, did not bring them happiness.

After states began, to adopt civil unions and other social contracts for what is an abnormal bond, the community remained unhappy. How does one know, well, the psychiatric couches remain filled with people of this community, this community even after civil unions remains in practice of seriel relationships. Hence the press for marriages. Not born out love but the desire to obtain and possess property, transfer property. Speaking of property, this community ranks largely in the upper income echelons of society, so one wonders just what the constitutional and legal barriers denying them what is guaranteed by the Constitution? Eveyone ever caught of assualt in any manner the memebrs of this community are prosecuted, because assault is against the law for everybody.

Those engaged in this behavior do not meet the standards for marriage as previously discussed. They did not pioneer any of the tools you claim, if anything they failed to use them.

Now, I am going to get to that slight of hand move you are attempting. That the use of legal tools available to everyone, for the purposes to which they were designed more than a hundred years ago equals a right to marriage.
False for so many reasons, but shrink the matter to non-sequitor, my use of legal mechanisms does not in any manner gurantee me anything, unless they are linked together and only if I meet the definional parameters.

Not only do fail to provide links. You fail to demonstrate just how the legal tools centuries old mind you qualify me for anything other than what is applicable to those structures — my father has empowered to act on his behalf, that does not make me the father.

The break-up, and now divorce rate of the community in question seems to suggest, continued unhappiness. Marriage will not resolve coming to some sense of peace with oneself about a behavior that an anomaly in nature. If in fact, there are issues with church, family and society — happiness will not be dervied in blaming society for a personal choice which must be redressed personally.

. . . note, I would appreciate the case in which anyone who chooses this behavior was denied any property for having done so. Note the law, statute or regulation . . .

And no it is not a myth or phony. Family members did prevent partners from visitation, especially this was the case when family members were present. Because hospitals have always deferred to immediate family, unless otherwise noted by some legal document.

“Another question is whether the natural-law tradition would allow paraplegics to marry legally.” I am not sure if I understand Corvino correctly, but natural law theorists actually DO in fact object to the aforementioned case of marriage if it in fact means the the marital acts of bodily conjugation cannot occur, so there is no incoherence.

The sterile couple is an exception to life’s conditions, not the rule [assuming the couple is involuntarily infertile, and not elective.] We all suffer from physical corruption through bodily disease in various ways, but this does not undermine coming to the conclusions made obvious by observation of nature what the human anatomy of female and male genitalia is intended for. I can pass away in a fatal auto accident today, but Corvino pointing out that society in fact allows my wife to continue to raise our child without me does not mean we are incoherent when objecting to elective single parent homes.

*** I also wanted to point out not all paraplegics are unable to engage in conjugal unions with their spouse, in example, Stephen Hawking, and all quadriplegics with ALS, who are still able to engage in the reciprocal expression and donation of love, and have children.

I am with you. That is, with your old position. The point is your brother’s marriage is a “marriage” in name only; which is the same to say that is no marriage at all. However, it is SOMETHING, and this is undeniable. You have changed your position toward marriage because of your recognition that your brother relationship with you sister-in-law is valid. I agree, but, if it is not marriage and it is still valid, what it is?

According to the review above, Gallager’s point is right, but Corvino touches an interesting problem; the same you touched. There are people that want the recognition of their relationship with people of the same sex or, in your brother’s case, with people of opposite sex but has no interest in becoming a family. This is an actual social and political problem that needs to be addressed. I have the same question as you had. The challenge here is: how protect “marriage” and, at the same time, recognize the union of people that want not or can not become families (the question of adoption notwithstanding; let’s not go so far)?

The only solution I could find so far, and it has its own problems, it is the complete separation of “marriage” and “civil union”. The former should be a RELIGIOUS matter, sacred as it is, and the latter a SOCIAL matter. In such case, all marriages would be civil unions, but the contrary would not be true. Therefore, I advocate to change the law and subtract the word “marriage” altogether. Use “civil union” instead, and give same-sex couples the same rights (adoption being another matter).

This way, I believe the gap between Gallagher and Corvino can be bridged. The notion of marriage being sacred and a step to family and the perpetuation of the species is preserved, and, at the same, the interest of those that does not want to start a family, but still want to share their lives with someone else, is attended.

One of the points that Ronald Grimes makes in “Deeply into the Bone” is that in most cultures, marriage is not fully complete until pregnancy has resulted. In some cases, even, pregnancy is required for marriage. I think there is a deep cross-cultural agreement on that and that modern western society is very much an outlier. The question really is why that is the case.

I would add also that at least in European history, there have been two very distinct ideals of marriage. There is the Classical and Germanic model, where marriage incorporates a household for the purpose of raising children (men may have sexual relations with servants attached to the house, but only children born to the wife are legitimate). There is also the polygynous marraige as child support model found in early Ireland (going so far as to declare rape both at once a crime as well as a marriage-and-divorce packaged together). This model is also found in the eastern branches of the Indo-European tradition, such as India.

So one aspect I think one has to acknowledge is that Corvino offers a different piece of tradition, namely this idea of household incorporation which is not even necessarily reproductively or sexually exclusive, but is there, at least in part, to protect the spouses. What is missing again is the link to reproduction and the question again is why.

The answer is not hard to find. Traditionally having kids in a marriage is necessary because kids are, essentially, a retirement plan. When we grow old and can no longer work, we move in with our kids and help them raise their kids. Except that we don’t do that anymore. Instead we use social security as a way of robbing children of the responsibility of caring for their parents as they age, and also use the same program to rob the elderly of social contact. Thus the focus on an “independent” retirement obscures and depersonalizes the link between the younger generation and the older generation, and enables a poor birth rate such as we have.

The sad truth is that we already have quite successfully severed the link between the married household and the children and unless that link is restored, same-sex marriage is inevitable. The real fear I have is that same-sex marriage will become a beach-head issue to attack this connection even further, for example, to repeal preferential tax status for married one income couples, or tax credits for children, or the like.

Chris, my proposal will restore the link between marriage and procreation by affirming in law that marriage always allows the couple to reproduce with their own genes. And it would be well promoted by the huge news that we have reached a compromise that ends same-sex marriage in America, stopped genetic engineering and preserved natural conception rights and equality, and given federal recognition to state Civil Unions that are defined as NOT having reproduction rights.

Arguments about “traditional” marriage seem, to me, to be either historically ignorant, grossly oversimplified, or frankly dishonest. Marriage as an institution is hardly monolithic. It varies depending on the culture and the historical context. Viewing marriage as one man and one women even modernly is more than a little myopic. Some 85% of cultures currently accept some form of polygamy. Most of these cultures only accept polygyny, but there are a small minority that are polyandrous.
Historically monogamy has not been the norm for marriage either. This is true even when it comes to “biblical” marriage. Some of Christianity/Judaism’s greatest hero’s had multiple spouses and or concubines such as Jacob, David, and Solomon. The ancient pre-Christian Celts, as I understand it, practiced a form of open marriage, which favored a woman’s right to chose her own sexual partners. So arguing from a historical context is invalid unless one also wishes to advocate for polygamy, since it ignores the vast bulk of human history and culture.
In the wider historical context marriage has also been as synonymous with cementing property rights and political alliances as it has been of securing offspring. Secondly this view of marriage has often treated women as nothing more than property. Biblical prohibitions on premarital sex applied more strongly to women not than men. If a man had sex with a women who he was not married to, he was required to either marry her, or if he was unsuitable to be a husband he was to pay the father the bride price. This was a means of protecting the property rights of a girl’s father, so he would not be burdened with a non-virgin and therefore un-marriageable daughter. It has far less to do with spiritual/religious matters, and far more to do with property rights.
Those of us in the modern West generally do not view our wives as property. Yet those of us who are conservative will often appeal to the same traditions which we think reinforce our cultural viewpoint, while often overlooking other portions of the same traditions which would modernly seem abhorrent. It seems to me that the generally libertarian idea of completely separating civil union from religious marriage is the most logically sound one. In this manner religious institutions would be protected from the ever dreaded but non existeant spectre of forced performance of same sex marriages, while also protecting the property, and inheritance rights of same-sex couples. The political will to accomplish this sort of reform does not exist, and this is exactly why there is now a push for same sex marriage, and why civil unions are not enough to satisfy same sex marriage advocates. From their perspective the current dychotomy between civil marriage vs. civil union created something akin to “separate but equal” and once again the benefits of one vs. the other was less than equal.

Seems to me there is a myth around churches being “forced to perform Same sex rites”. They either do or they don’t. Who would want to be married in a church that didn’t accept SSM in the first place? Lawsuits? Nah.

I fail to grasp the power of an argument which compares same-sex marriage to the marriage of disabled persons. If the argument that same-sex marriage should be legal because it is as ontologically legitimate as heterosexual marriage, why do they need to resort to rare examples of unhappy accidents for comparison? Few if any would wish infertility or paralysis upon themselves, so why does that seem to be the old-standby rebuttal for the pro-homo argument?

The idea that there is a “natural purpose” for our sexual organs is not undermined by the existence of defect. If we may appeal once again to history, defects – whether infertility, blindness, lameness, etc. – have traditionally been a source of sorrow and many have prayed for deliverance from them. If the above analogy of the pro-homo is to be carried through, then how is it tantamount to bigotry to suggest – as psychologists and clergy alike once did – that the homosexual orientation is an orientation askew?

As St. Paul would say, I know I am speaking like a madman, but Corvino’s logic seems to lead one thither.

The debate has a very stilted quality insofar as the older natural law tradition–represented by contemporaries such as Ralph McInerney–is slighted in favor of the new natural law of Robert George, John Finnis, and others. The new natural lawyers do not regard procreation as the purpose of marriage–they think that’s an “instrumentalist” and bad way of thinking. They also think–unlike the tradition–that homosexual acts are wrong in the same way, and for the same reason, as adultery, masturbation, and marital sex using contraception. Which seems like a very unsound peg to hang the defense of traditional marriage on, in this day and age.

Maggie Gallagher wisely avoids buying into all of it, but she never analyzes it and isolates it from her own position. Her own position borrows from the tradition without understanding it fully. For example, she fails to explain how, if procreation is central to marriage, sterile and aged couples can marry.

The tradition was rooted in metaphysics, which spoke of essentialism, which makes it sensible to speak of all opposite-sex couples as having an intrinsic capacity to procreate. Hate metaphysics if you like, but don’t be proud of your irrationality in doing so.

Gay culture is extremely hedonistic and youth obsessed. They have never ever created anything close to marriage. Nor it has never made any sense for them to do so. Nowadays, though, seeing the opportunity to exploit SWPL’ guilty, they take gay monogamous couples (who are like those shy, nerdy schoolchildren who are generally mocked but then approached when there is some school project to do) and use them as propaganda to instill sympathy in guilty ridden heterosexuals. The results of it couldn’t be more obvious. Including gays in marriage will legitimize the general gay lifestyle, which is antithetical to the values that created and strengthened marriage. Heterosexuals will start to realize that the nice gay couples in TV and newspapers are the minority of the minority. Marriage will keep declining, still suffering from the blast from the sexual liberation, with gay marriage being just another punch and spit on a great institution that is already on its knees.

I believe, with plenty of medical evidence, brain scans and other physiological monitoring evidence, that people’s gender preferences are wired into the brain. The same goes for animals, with no culture, some will form homosexual pairings for life and do not respond to heterosexual mating opportunities.

Which would make homosexuality and lifelong homosexual pairings ALSO a “natural kind,” something that exists in nature before any law.

So… The “natural kind” can simply be a lifelong emotional and sexual commitment to another person; and one can see marriage as the formal recognition of that “natural kind.”

There are obviously benefits to the individuals for such a commitment, including the emotional attachment, trust, care, companionship, the pooling of resources and reduced expenses of cohabitation, all the reasons that elderly or infertile may marry.

There are benefits to society as well in raising children, possibly adopted, and in a more resilient financial union; if one partner is temporarily out of work the chance of harm to society by debt default or bankruptcy is much reduced should one become temporarily unemployed.

I’m only 17 and I’m researching for my government class on gay marriage rights. Yes, I’m young but I’d like to say that why would anyone be against gay marriage? I honestly do not understand it. Personally, I’m not religious. I have been to church though. The bible has been changed many many times by past kings and queens to what they wanted it to be. Plus in the bible there are gay couples. Example “Ruth loved Naomi as Adam loved Eve.” , “David loved Jonathan more than women” , “What was the relationship between the centurion and his slave? Were they a gay couple? If so, Jesus didn’t seem to mind.”. Those are some quotes from the bible. If you’re arguing that marriage should be between and man and a woman because they can make children and raise them “right” well, there are lots of women out there that can’t conceive. Does that mean they shouldn’t get married? To me, love is love and I accept anyone how they are. If you can’t accept someone for who they are then there’s something wrong with you. Lots of gay and lesbian couples have one that’s more feminine and one that’s more manly which definitely isn’t always the case but a lot of times it is. Why would anyone want to take away chances of children getting adopted? That’s just sick to me. As long as the couple is loving, caring and will watch over that child there’s nothing wrong with gay couples adopting. For people saying it’ll make more chances of mental illnesses, I don’t believe that if we legalize gay marriage. Why? Many of the gay/lesbian people that are out there that have mental illnesses are because they’re not accepted in the world. It’s not acceptable for them to love who they love which isn’t fair. You don’t choose to be gay, you just are, from what friends and family has told me. You’re all being ignorant if you do not accept human beings for being themselves. It’s human nature to love and who cares if you fall in love with the same sex. Also, jesus doesn’t accept you if you’re gay? Why would he make them then? His name is jesUS not jesidon’tlikegaypeople. Jesus loves everyone. If you’re looking at this from a religious stance. The world is changing. Slavery is over. African americans have equal rights. Women have equal rights. Now it’s time for gay people to be treated equally as well. Let people love who they want to love and marry who they wish to marry.

@Stephanie
What is your position with regard to the following cases, then:

1) Can a brother marry a sister?
2) Can a brother marry a sister if they are both infertile?
3) Can a father marry his son?
4) Can a man have several wives?
5) Can a woman have several husbands?
6) Can there be a marriage between several husbands and wives?
7) Can a marriage be between several hundred people, if they claim they love each other and want to live together?

If you are against ANY of those points, then I claim you are hypocrite.

I’m well over three years late to this party, but what the heck. To the natural law folks citing natural teleology as the only justification for union, I would like you to disprove Hume. I do not see why the natural law folks are not all guilty of the fallacy of illegitimately moving from a descriptive statement (“is”) to a normative proposition (“ought”). Suppose we grant that factually male and female sexual organs exist for the sake of procreation. Why does it then follow that marriage must be founded on such a purpose. What is the middle term that makes accepting that the conclusion (“ought”) follows from the premise (“is”)?